Mobutu Sese Seko dies at 66

Associated Press, in Philadelphia Daily News,
8 September 1997

RABAT, Morocco - Mobutu Sese Seko, the Zairian leader toppled
in May after nearly 32 years of autocratic rule that left his country
in shambles, died yesterday. He was 66.

Mobutu, who for decades was a strong anti-communist ally of the
United States in Africa, died of prostate cancer at the Mohamed V
military hospital in Rabat, said two hospital workers who spoke on
condition of anonymity. The Maghreb Arab Press agency said
only that Mobutu had died at 9:30 p.m. local time "after a long
illness." He had been living in exile in Morocco since May,
following his ouster by the rebel forces of Laurent Kabila, who
restored the country's old name of Congo.

Zaire was in ruins when Mobutu was deposed, and while his
fortune was estimated in the billions, he died with neither a title
nor a country. A family member in Kinshasha, capital of Congo,
said Mobutu had informed his family he wanted to be cremated
and have his ashes scattered over his old country. Mobutu arrived
in Morocco on May 23, after searching for a country that would
take him. King Hassan II agreed to host him for a "few days,"
but the deposed leader ended up staying over three months.

During his rule, Mobutu became a symbol of excess and when he
was ousted after an eight-month rebellion in May, his resource-rich
country of 45 million was in economic and political shambles.
Mobutu was out of Zaire during most of the rebel advance,
recovering from cancer surgery in his palatial homes in
Switzerland and the south of France. When he finally gave up
power in May, he cited only health reasons, ignoring the growing
ranks of opposition that had undermined his rule.

Mobutu was the last of Africa's Cold War relics, an autocrat in a
leopard-skin hat who lived like a king while leading his potentially
magnificent country down a ruinous path. The former Joseph-
Desire Mobutu seized power in a military coup on November 24,
1965, five years after the mineral-blessed colossus once known as
the Congo of the continent gained independence from Belgium.
Then a colonel and the army chief of staff, Mobutu had earned his
soldiers' loyalty by building up the military forces and crushing
post-independence secessionist revolts.

His coup was welcomed by the West, which was vying with the
Soviets for influence on the continent, and by Zairians weary of
the bickering civilian government that couldn't decide how best to
share power in the ethnically diverse nation. Mobutu promised to
preserve democratic institutions and eventually return the country
to civilian rule.

Instead, he declared himself head of state, founded the Popular
Revolutionary Movement Party, banned all other political parties,
and embarked on a decades-long pursuit of absolute power.
Estimates of his wealth ran as high as $8 billion, though he told
the authors of the book, "Voices of Zaire," in 1988 that he was
worth only $5 million.